12 Best Journal Apps for Writing Daily Online & Off in 2022

We all want to live a productive, healthy, and happy life. One of the best ways to your life on track is to journal. There are plenty of online journals to help.

Journaling is in incredibly helpful way to improve your life. For many, journaling can have a negative connotation. People think of school girls locked away in their room writing about their latest crush when they think of journaling. 

While journaling can capture those moments, it provides so much more to help serve you in your life. There are numerous benefits of journaling such as:

• reducing stress
• lifting your mood
• keeping you accountable for your goals
• and many more

In today’s digital age, journaling apps have become very popular. They provide a quick and easy way to take to down any thoughts that you have wherever you go. 

In this article, we’ll go over the best online journal apps that you can download today to help improve your life. 

First, let’s go over benefits of common journaling app features and what to look for in each app.

Benefits of Using Online Journal Apps

Journaling apps are the best way to get the most out of your journaling efforts. They offer you a journal experience that is much more interactive than pen and paper. The best journaling apps have a few features in common that help make the apps great for journaling:

• The prompts that are offered. Many of the apps offer writing prompts that help you get started with writing. Starting a journal entry is often the hardest part of the process, so these prompts help get you started right from the get-go. Also, these prompts can help inspire creativity for topics that wouldn’t normally have thought of. 
• The use of notifications. These notifications remind you to journal. It can be easy to forget to journal in your busy day and these notifications keep you on track. 
• Inspirational quotes. The goal of journaling is to help document and improve your life. Inspirational quotes can be such a game changer when trying to find this inspiration. Many apps show you inspirational quotes on your entries to help inspire you for the day. 
• Tagging. One of the biggest perks of using journaling apps is the ability to organize your journal entries with tagging. This helps you keep track of specific topics that you talk about and revisit them later. 

Now let’s go over what to look for in online journal apps.

What to Look For In Journaling Apps

There are a few features of journaling apps that you’ll want to look for. These features will help get the most complete journaling experience. 

Here are a list of the features to consider when you choose your online journal. 

• Strong security. Security of your journal entries is incredibly important. Look for apps that have your entries either encoded, are password protected, and aren’t hosted on the apps servers. 
• Upload media. Having the ability to upload music, images, videos, and GIFS to your journal entries is a game changer. They allow you to add much more content to your entries and give yourself a better journaling experience. 
• Ability to export. Often times, you’ll want to export your entries to a pdf or other medium to share or create something out of them. If you’re going to be writing in the app every day, make sure you can export your entries.
• Sync with cloud services. You’ll want to have a backup of your journal entries in case anything happens to them. A feature to look for in journaling apps is the ability for the app to sync with third party cloud services.

Let’s go over the top twelve journal apps that you can download today! 

12 Best Journal Apps for Writing Daily Online & Off (Free + Paid) For 2022

Here are the top twelve best journal apps that you can download right now! Most of the apps are paid apps, but many have free versions available. 

1. Diaro

Diaro is a daily journal and notes app. You can record everything form daily events, appointments, images, and any of your thoughts. 

Here are a few notable features for this online journal:

• mobile and web apps (iOS & Android compatible)
• import and export to PDF, Docx, or Txt
• syncs with Dropbox
• detailed statistics about your diary entries and mood

This app is a one-time purchase. Once you buy it, you’ve got it forever. The application has in app purchases, so a lite version of the journal is available. 

2. Day One 

Day One is an award winning app. It was Apple’s app of the year and won the Apple design award. The sleek design inspires you to add journal entries This app is only for iOS and macOS. You can add photos, videos, drawings, or audio recordings to your journal entries.

Here are the main features for this daily journal online:

• automatic backups of data to private servers
• rich text formatting with markdown
• ability to create multiple journals
• unlimited number of text entries

The app is free, but has a monthly subscription for $2.92 a month that unlocks many useful features such as unlimited photos and videos. 

3. Diarium

Diarium is available for macOS, iOS, Windows, and Android. The main page shows a calendar where you can see what days entries were added.

The app makes adding entries easy and they let you add a wide range of information in each entry like weather, location, schedule, and activity level. The clean and uncluttered interface makes helps you focus on getting in your daily entries.

Here are a few main features of this diary app:

• daily notifications remind you to write down your memories
• attach pictures, videos, audio, tags, people, ratings, or locations
• create templates 
• full integration into system calendar
• automatic integration of your social media activity

The app is free, but does offer in app purchases. 

4. Penzu

Penzu is available for Android and iOS. With this online journal app, you can sync journals to the cloud for free. You can also customize your journal covers and lock the app with a PIN for security. The app also gives you the ability to write offline. 

Here are a few notable features for this online journal app:

• custom email reminders to write a daily entry
• military grade encryption 
• smart journal search
• fully customizable diary. 

Penzu offers three tiers of pricing. The first tier is free, and the other tiers cost $19.99 and $49.99 respectively. 

5. Grid Diary

Grid Diary is available for iOS and Android. The app takes a slightly different approach to journaling. It combines a diary with planner templates that have prompts. This helps you focus more on specific parts of your life. The app syncs across all devices and allows you to add tags to each entry. 

Here are the main features for this online journal

• guided writing 
• build your own journal and planner system
• markdown editor
• multiple export options

Grid Diary offers a free version with many features. It also has a premium version for $2.99 a month or $22.99 annual subscription. 

6. Prompted Journal

Prompted journal is available for iOS and Android. This daily journal online takes a minimalist approach to journaling. The focus of the app is to simplify self-improvement and help you form good habits. You can add to do lists, use the three good things template, and write in a prompted journal with this app. 

Here are the main features for this diary app:

• 100+ curated prompts
• create a PDF out of all your entries
• no data is stored with the app server for your privacy. 

Most of the apps features are free, but you can unlock even more features with an annual purchase. 

7. Five Minute Journal

Five Minute Journal is available for iOS and Android. This diary app is a science backed guided gratitude journal. The app has a timeline view so you can view previous entries with excerpts. You can also receive daily quotes and weekly challenges. The app has a passcode protection to keep all your journal entries private. 

Here are the main features for this online journal

• widgets available for home screen
• daily mood tracker
• extra space for notes and self-reflection
• reminders to journal

The app is free with optional premium features.

8. Reflect

Reflect is available for Android and iOS. The app is a reflective journal that intelligently helps you capture your thoughts and feelings. The company says their goal is to help you shift your outlook to a more positive one. The journal app focuses on deep reflection topics to get the most out of your journaling. 

Here are the main features for this daily journal online:

• library of topics for self-reflection
• mood checker
• analytics of topics written about
• notifications reminder

This app is free, but offers in app purchases.

9. Daylio

Daylio is a diary app that lets you create a journal entry within two taps. With each entry you can pick your mood and select tags to organize the entries. You can display your entries in a list or calendar view.

One cool feature is you can view the entire year in pixels. Each pixel is colored based on the mood you had for that day. This gives you an overview of how you felt throughout the year. 

Here are the main features for this online journal

• create daily, weekly or monthly goals and motivate yourself
• explore interesting monthly or yearly statistics created from your logs
•  advanced statistics for every mood, activity or group
• customize color themes
• dark mode

The app is free but offers premium features in the app.

10. Google Keep

Google Keep is available for iOS and Android. Plus, there’s a web version.

You don’t normally think of Google Keep as an online journal app. But the app is very versatile and can easily help you keep a journal. What’s great about the app is it lets you capture ideas quickly. A cool feature of the journal app is you can extract text from other images. Keep in mind though that there’s no rich text formatting or markdown support though.

Here are the main features for this online journal

• works well with other Google apps
• home screen widgets
• simple to use interface
• label each note 

Google Keep is completely free to use!

11. Journey

Journey is available on a wide variety of platforms including iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and more. With this online journal app, you can upload pictures, videos, GIFs, and music into your diary. You’ll find guided journaling coach programs that are created by many life coaches. Security is a big priority for Journey. You can use Apple Face Id, Apple Touch ID, and Android Biometric to keep your journal safe. 

Here are the main features for this online journal

• available on a large number of platforms
• record the highlights of your life
• automate with Zapier
• location tagging

The app is free, but offers in app purchases.

12. Evernote

Evernote is available for macOS, iOS, Windows, and Android. This is an incredibly popular app that’s been around for quite some time. The app isn’t normally thought of as a journal app. However, the app is packed with so many features and is incredibly flexible that it can easily be transformed into a journal app. Evernotes strength lies within its ability to handle media. Images, videos, documents, and all other types of media can easily be added and manipulated within a note.

Here are the main features for this daily journal online:

• create tasks with due dates, flags, and reminders
• easy to set up templates
• document scanning
• integrates with popular apps like Microsoft Teams, Google Drive, and much more

Evernote offers a free version along with three other pricing tiers. 

Let’s now go over another great offer that you can take advantage of to bolster your creativity. 

Download High Quality Creative Assets (With Unlimited Use)

Need help with any of your personal or professional projects? With the use of professional creative assets, you’ll have all the tools to create with confidence. Using professional creative assets in your projects is a must if you’re trying to save time and deliver a high quality product. Envato Elements has just what you need to supercharge your next project and save you time. 

Explore Professional Creative Assets Now

Envato Elements is the best place on the web for creative tools of all types. For a low monthly fee, you get unlimited downloads of PowerPoint templates, photos, fonts, videos, and much more. All these resources can be used in your next project.

Elements is one of the best values out there for creatives today. With the unlimited downloads, you’ll be able to try out all types of options in your upcoming projects.

Here’s how you benefit from using Envato Elements:

• save money by not having to hire professional graphic designers
• save time by starting with an already professional design
• generate new ideas with all the fresh creative assets
• focus on other parts of your creative project

GraphicRiver also has plenty of creative assets that you can buy. Instead of paying for a subscription, buy individual creative assets with the same great quality!

Grab Your Online Journal App Today

Journal apps are a great option when you’re looking into daily journaling. The apps offer a wide range of features that paper and pen can’t that help make the journaling process that much easier. Many of the journaling apps on this list are free to use and can help you become a more successful person.

In this article, we covered twelve of the best journaling apps that have many of the same and different features. Go through the list again and find what suits your needs for journaling and get started!